Reading Comprehension Practice – Part 3

Directions: In this test you will read several passages. Answer all the questions that follow by encircling the correct answer.

Passage C

1. In the year 1799, an officer of the French Army was stationed in a small fortress on the Rosetta River, a mouth of the Nile, near Alexander, Egypt. He was interested in the ruins of the ancient Egyptian civilization, and had seen the sphinx and the pyramids, those mysterious structures that were erected by men of another era.
2. One day, as a trench was being dug, he found a piece of black slate on which letters had been carved. He had studied Greek in school, and knew this was an inscription written in that language. There were two more lines carved into the stone: one on the Egyptian characters he had seen on the ruins , the other in completely unfamiliar characters.
3. The officer realized the importance of such a find, and relinquished it to scholars who had been puzzling over Egyptian inscriptions.
4. In 1802, a french professor by the name of Champollion began studying the stone in an attempt to decipher the two unknown sets of characters using the Greek letters as a key. He worked with the stone for over twenty years, and in 1823, announced that he had discovered the meaning of the fourteen signs, and in doing so, had unlocked the secret of ancient Egyptian writing.
5. Some 5000 years after an unknown person had made those three inscriptions, the Rosetta Stone became a key, unlocking the written records of Egypt and sharing the history of that civilization with the rest of the world.

QUESTIONS:

16. What is the main idea of the selection?

a. French scholars worked hard in studying ancient history.

b. Ancient Egyptians wrote and preserved their history in stones.

c. The discovery of the Rosetta Stone led to a better understanding of the history of Egypt.

d. A French Army officer studied the Rosetta Stone and the inscriptions carved into it.

17. In which country was the Rosetta Stone found?

a. Egypt b. Greece c. France d. Alexandra

18. What word would best describe ancient Egyptians based on the selection?

a. dedicated b. resourceful c. wise d. gifted

19. What might have happened if the Rosetta Stone were not found?

a. Egyptian civilization would have flourished.